The number of crossings is a rough measure of how tangential the spokes are. Anything more than 90 degrees from radial is obviously fail, head interference aside. For a driven or hub-braked wheel, the more tangential the better, but not by a whole lot, as long as it's not radial. In other words, radial's bad, 1x is a lot better (and easily sufficient, unless it's a hub-braked front), 2x is a bit better again, and on low flange hubs, 3x is ideal. 4x on high-flange hubs (assuming 32-36h). For rim-braked fronts, radial is slightly better than tangential, offering easier truing and small benefits in weight and aerodynamics, although only a good idea if the hub is forged and has beefy flanges, or is straight-pull or something; there has to be enough metal in front of the spoke elbow. Whether radial spokes used on one side or other of the rear wheel are a good thing or not probably comes down to each individual design.

So having said all that, it's definitely not worth a bit more tangent to uglify your wheel by bending the spokes over their neighbours and risking failures as a result, particularly for the front. If you can get your hands on a thread roller, you can use those spokes to build your wheel 3x... I did just that today, in fact.

Looks like 27x1&1/4 (which is actually about 25mm, and 27x1" is more like 20mm). After a bit of googling, I find a figure of 22.5mm (440g)... good for the rear. Bit more googling shows a few other options, Sun's M13 II, Weinmann's LP18 (no eyelets though), for example. Postage is prohibitive, but perhaps a LBS could order one for you.